Poet About Town

Just a head’s up that I’m going to be participating in a couple of local poetry events this month that I want to promote and share.

First, I’ll be guest-hosting the monthly BookWoman Poetry Open Mic on Thursday, July 14th at 7:15 p.m. Regular host Cindy Huyser is going to be out of town, and I’m honored that she asked me to fill in. This month’s featured readers will be Mike and Joyce Gullickson.

Mike and Joyce Gullickson together publish “The Enigmatist” and “Blue Hole” magazines. Mike is the founder and chairman of the Georgetown Poetry Festival, held the first weekend in October at the Georgetown Public Library. His work has appeared in the San Antonio Express, Barnwood Press, X-magazine, Di-Verse-City, and others. In 2008/9 he won the National Senior Poet Laureate prize with his poem “A Promise of Music.” Joyce Gullickson has been labeled everything from a poetry pilgrim to a poetry pariah.  She believes poetry can connect all people…if only they are willing to listen…are you???

After the featured poets read their work, we’ll have a round-robin open mic until roughly 9 p.m., or whenever people run out of poems, whichever comes first.

On July 28th, I’ll be reading at the Twin Oaks Library from 2:30-4:30, as part of a reading series curated by local poet Ralph Hausser. Throughout the summer, Ralph is featuring poets who have won awards and honorable mentions in the Austin Poetry Society Annual Awards, the APS monthly contests, and APS special contests. I’m thrilled to have been invited to participate, and I especially look forward to being back at Twin Oaks, which was my home branch when we first moved to Austin, before we moved to the north-central part of town.

Both of these events are free and open to the public. Come beat the heat this summer with air conditioning and great poems!